Transformers: Tarnished Idols
by SingingFlames
Summary: Time doesn't heal all wounds. Some wounds fester. No Pairings/Slash. No OCs. Complete.


Title: Transformers: Tarnished Idols  
Universe: G1  
Pairings: None  
Rating: G  
Warnings: Mild Angst, Claustrophobia  
Author's Note: Time doesn't heal all wounds. Some wounds fester. Time conversion – vorn: 83 years. This story is completely stand alone from all my other fics, and does not relate to them in any way. Transformers and all associated names are registered trademarks of Hasbro. My work is in no way affiliated with or endorsed by Hasbro. All Hail Hasbro!

**-o-o-o-**

"I swear I will kill Rumble," Starscream said, mouth twisted into a fierce grimace.

Dust filled the room, blinding his optics and clogging his vents. He forced several quick bursts of air through them. Perhaps he could clear the overworked mechanisms. It didn't work. As soon as he hacked some out, more dust flowed in. Now he resembled some sort of pathetic organic thing, clearing its respiratory organs. He cursed quietly. At least his vocals weren't tied intrinsically to his vents, like some fleshling.

Warnings on his HUD display pinged as his internal temperature slowly started climbing and his vents failed to compensate. Nothing serious. Yet. He planned to be long gone before the dust and heat buildup caused any permanent damage.

Starscream glanced to either end of the underground bunker. Or what little he could see. The explosion – just a moment after Rumble's tell-tale ground shaking attack, and what did _that_ tell a mech? – had filled the air with the ever pervasive dust and caused radiation spikes that interfered with his sensors. His audios could discern the sounds of distant fighting.

The raid on the fleshling energy plant had soured when the Autobots arrived. As usual. In an attempt to salvage some energy, Megatron had ordered the fliers – Thundercracker, Skywarp, Astrotrain and himself – to gather as many cubes as possible and fall back while the others distracted their enemies. His fellow Seekers had escaped before Rumble had caused the explosion. Unfortunately, he and Astrotrain were still below at the time.

"Astrotrain? Where are you?"

Silence answered him. He tried his comm, but the radiation rendered it useless.

Starscream cursed. Enhancing his optics, he picked up the outlines of the room and clutter inside it, a significant more amount of clutter than he remembered. Head jerking from side to side, he confirmed it: the underground chamber was mostly collapsed. The once large room was now a third its original size. He couldn't see the exits. A groan sounded from above and more dust, cement and wood fragments trickled down.

He was trapped.

**-o-o-o-**

_Cybertron, 108,000 vorns ago (just after the beginning of the war) -_

_Dust and ash choked the air. But Starscream was grateful. It kept him from seeing everything, from acknowledging the truth. He wanted to shutter his optics, pretend that the scene before him was not real. It could not be real. When he restarted his optics, everything would be right again. But he knew better._

_Vos was destroyed._

_The glorious city of the fliers lay in smoking ruins. Its towering spires, higher than any other city-states', had fallen. There would be no more Seekers dashing through its arches and curves, daring each other to ever more impressive feats of speed and dexterity. The city – _his city _– was no more than burnt rubble._

_Even more spark-rending than Vos' loss, were the lives now gone. How many had been here? Countless fliers, most the Seekers themselves, had been here. And now everything, everyone, was gone._

"_Starscream…?" Thundercracker spoke quietly. He stood at a respectful distance from his leader, one hand on Skywarp's shoulder. The purple and black mech seemed unaware of the comfort. He stared at the devastation, gaping. Thundercracker continued, "What now?"_

_Starscream faced his wing mates. Vos was their home. When the troubles had started, yes, the fighting could get bad, and yes, friends and loved ones were lost, but they could always go home. But now…._

"_I don't know."_

**-o-o-o-**

Panic rose in Starscream. Trapped. He was trapped, here, buried beneath unknown amounts of rubble. What was left of the ceiling above shuddered and groaned. As he watched, more scraps of charred wood collapsed to the ground. The clatter mocked him, sounding like laughter to his audios. His optics raced across the ceiling above. Was it giving away? He could see it quiver. Or maybe he imagined that, his overactive processor getting away from him. He couldn't tell.

Claustrophobia had been a curse of the Seekers for as long as they could remember. For mechanisms created to soar through open skies and space, breaking the sound barrier as easily as other Cybertronians walked, being confined into cramped spaces was pure torment. Walls being too close, the inability to fly, to escape, denied the freedom to move, in the past it had driven some Seekers insane.

Megatron had been unimpressed to learn his elite warriors had such an illogical – to his processor – weakness. His solution? He used a 'box' to condition the fear out the Seekers, especially his Second in Command, Starscream. It hadn't worked, of course. At best, it had taught the Seekers to merely hide their fears around their volatile leader.

Remembering Megatron and that cursed 'box' helped rein in Starscream's thoughts. He could do this. The 'box' was smaller than this. Here, at least, he could stand and turn around. Another groan sounded from above. Although, the 'box' never threatened to collapse, burying him under tons of rubble. He shuddered. No. Don't consider that.

Offlining his optics, Starscream forced himself to stand still. He ignored the noises, ignored – or tried to – the tiny chips of cement and wood that sprinkled down onto his chassis. He ran a system's diagnostic. Processor: fully operational. Mobility: fully operational. Weapon Systems: fully operational. Thrusters: operating at 72% efficiency. Communication: internally functional, rendered useless by external radiation. Internal cooling: operating at 15% efficiency. But he already knew that, because of the wonderful dust. And he couldn't leave, since he was stuck here, _trapped_ …. No, stop that. He shook his head. He forced himself to run through every one of his systems, even though he intrinsically knew his own status. It was all a distraction. In the 'box,' he and the other Seekers had quickly learned how to distract themselves. It was that, or go insane.

After running his fifth system's check, he changed tactics and ran a diagnostic of the room's atmosphere. He didn't care about the air in here, but it was becoming increasingly harder to distract himself with the same numbers repeating themselves, over and over. Perhaps he could interest his scientific side.

Still with his optics offline, he examined the radiation and other compounds in the air. There were high amounts of methane and carbon dioxide. What had that idiot Rumble breached? The gases must have leaked after the explosion. Surely, they would have ignited had they been present during the detonation.

So, no lasers or thrusters. Unless he wanted to blow up. Which, if he were stuck here too long, might look appealing.

He shook his head again. He couldn't afford to think that way. A hundred-thousand vorns of war had not offlined him. He would not let a _building_ extinguish him. A fleshing's building, even. Wouldn't Megatron just love to see that? Just thinking of the Slag Maker's smirk brought a snarl to Starscream's face. He'd never give Megatron that satisfaction.

He snapped his optics back online. He would find a way out of here. Keeping his gaze on the ground – he couldn't bring himself to look at the unstable ceiling – he worked his way around the perimeter. If he faced the widest part of the room, he could _almost_ trick himself into believing the space was larger than it appeared. Perception was everything. He continued around the room, never looking up, gaze always on the most open space. He could do this. Focused as he was, he stumbled over a familiar shape mostly covered in debris.

"Astrotrain?"

Starscream bent down by the triple-former. The other mech lay motionless, buried almost up to his head. A quick scan confirmed that, while he was severely damaged, he was only in stasis, not offline. Well, if the ceiling did collapse on them, Astrotrain would never know about it.

"Lucky fool," Starscream muttered, glaring.

A pain-filled grunt sounded. Starscream started, looking at the unconscious Astrotrain. No, it hadn't been him. The triple-former hadn't moved, much less grunted. Glancing around, Starscream tried to find the sound's source.

Someone was down here – _trapped_, a small traitorous voice whispered in the back of his processor – with him. Decepticon, or Autobot? At this point, he didn't care. A Decepticon could help him escape. If it was an Autobot, at least a good fight would help distract him. Knowing the soft-hearted Autobots, they might try to convince him to work with them, "for mutual benefit." Plotting his inevitable betrayal would also provide a decent distraction. Although…

"Do us both a favor, whoever you are, and don't use your firearms. There's a considerable amount of flammable gasses in here, and I don't feel like exploding," Starscream said. He had just announced both his presence and relative location to a possible enemy, but better that then risk the other mech igniting the gasses.

"Typical," a muffled voice answered him. "An unknown, possibly hostile, entity is present, and your first reaction is to save your own chassis."

Wings flaring, Starscream clenched his hands. He narrowed his optics. All his concerns – his claustrophobia, the unstable ceiling, the flammable gasses, everything – vanished. Of all the mechs to be down here, why did it have to be _that one_?

"Megatron."

**-o-o-o-**

_Cybertron –_

_Standing slightly behind and to the side, Starscream watched as Megatron delivered his speech. The grey gun-former spoke of their fierce battles, their stirring victories. Raising his fusion cannon, he reminded them of the atrocities committed against the working caste, how both the action and inaction of Iacon had allowed Cybertronians suffer. Corruption ruled Cybertron. They would take their planet back. They would crush those who wished to hold them down, to dictate their lives. They were powerful. They would win._

_Fists pumping in the air, the gathered Decepticons cheered. Starscream lifted his head, his wings flaring with pride. They _were _powerful. Truly, nothing could stand against them. Any who doubted that only needed to look at Megatron, see the leader's fierce determination, and they would know this war was already won. The stubborn Autobots just hadn't figured it out yet._

_With a few more inspiring words, Megatron beckoned to Starscream and left the gathering. The Seeker hurried after._

"_How are your fellow Seekers?"_

"_Angry," Starscream replied. "Eager to kill something."_

"_Excellent." Megatron nodded. "Iacon made a mistake. Several, in fact. But their worst was to allow the situation to degrade so far that the city-states warred upon each other. They could have stopped it. Their oversight caused countless deaths. I don't need to remind you of that."_

_Starscream did not reply. His fists clenched as he looked away, wings tense. No, Megatron did not need to remind him. If he lived for another one hundred thousand vorns, he would always remember Vos._

"_It was their worst mistake." Megatron said, interrupting his thoughts. "Listen to me. It will destroy them. Your anger – yours and your fellow's – make you stronger. Use it. Show them your anger, your hate. Rain fire down upon them. Burn them until they're nothing but dust and ash, like Vos. The Seekers are the elite aerial force on Cybertron, and you are the best Seeker ever created. You can win this war for us."_

_Starscream nodded, unable to initialize his vocals. After the fall of Vos, the Seekers had been lost, without purpose. But here, they were needed. Valued. Yes, he could, he _would_, do those things. With Megatron to lead them, Starscream and the rest of the Decepticons would avenge Vos. With Megatron, they were unstoppable._

**-o-o-o-**

"What incredibly idiotic thing did you do to cause this?"

"As usually, Mighty Megatron, you have put your incredible processor to the task and slagged it up. Rumble caused this, or didn't you notice? By the way, I was serious. Don't use your gun, unless you wish to see another explosion, from a very, _very_, close perspective," Starscream reaffirmed his earlier warning. A disturbing number of his and Megatron's conversations ended with the latter discharging his cannon. Starscream never _wanted_ to be shot, but now he actually had a legitimate reason to warn his leader against doing so. Hopefully, the gun-former would listen. The Seeker strained his optics, but the dust and rubble blocked his view. "Where are you?"

Megatron did not reply. Undoubtedly, he was considering whether Starscream was lying about the flammable gasses. After a few moments of silence, he said, "I fell through the ground floor, and am now in a storage room, adjacent to the bunker. The exit is mostly collapsed."

"Ah. I'm next to you, relatively." Throwing a glance at the motionless Astrotrain, Starscream considered his options. Stay here, trapped alone – Astrotrain hardly counted at this point – or join the one mech he hated above all others? A trickle of rubble rained down on his helm. An unconscious shudder ran through his frame. He moved toward the other room. Some things were worse than Megatron.

The debris lay cluttered everywhere on this side of the room. Sounds of scuffling and shifting clutter echoed from behind the mounds of cement and wood. Something crashed to the floor.

"Try not to bring the roof down on us," Starscream said. He reached up and moved some of the loose debris blocking the way.

"Stop sniveling. Are you ever _not_ a coward?" Megatron countered, his vocals floating through the rubble.

"Do _you_ ever think, before blundering your way through everything in your path, regardless of the consequences?"

"I know my abilities. I know how to control myself and achieve the results I want. Something you've never learned." The scorn in his vocals was clear, even through the wreckage.

Starscream laughed at their continuous insults. So predictable. He cleared more wreckage away.

"Are you helping me, or burying me?" Megatron asked.

"So suspicious. I'm insulted. As your Second in Command, it's my duty to assist you in whatever way I can, of course." Starscream smirked at his own words.

"Of course. You're always so 'helpful.'"

A large section of cement – filling most of the entryway – shifted amidst the rest of the rubble. Starscream grabbed it, helping the other mech force it aside. Once it was cleared, the doorway was clear enough to allow the other Decepticon through. The two faced each other.

"You're welcome," the Seeker muttered.

"Please," Megatron said. "I didn't need you."

"No, you never did."

**-o-o-o-**

_Cybertron –_

_Smoke and dust swirled over the battlefield. Heedless of the visual obstruction, Starscream hurtled through the air, raining missiles down on his enemies. Return fire answered his assault. He dove and spun, dodging the shots. His wing mates and the other Seekers trailed behind him, unable to match his speed. Within moments, the aerial forces destroyed most of the remaining Autobots, scattering the rest._

_Starscream sent out his Seekers, to search for both casualties and enemies. Spinning on his tail, he flew off on his own search. He found Megatron standing amidst the fallen bodies of his foes. The gun-former cried a challenge out to the heavens. There were no enemies left worthy enough to face the mighty leader. His challenge went unanswered._

_Circling above, Starscream drank in the sight. The Autobots still fought, true, but they couldn't stand against Megatron. The war was over. It was just a matter of time. Justice would be theirs._

_The Seeker descended, transformed and landed before his leader. Megatron nodded at him._

"_The Autobots are in retreat. Those that still function." Starscream smirked at the thought._

"_Excellent," Megatron said, a rare, satisfied smile crossing his face as he surveyed the carnage around him. "This is your victory. Without the air support provided by you and your Seekers, we would not have won today."_

_Starscream ducked his head, trying not to grin like a sparkling. "It was our honor to serve."_

_Megatron turned to face him. His gaze traveled over the battled-hardened flier. "You've grown. Not physically, of course. But when I met you, you were just a fancy, stunt flier. The best, true, and with great potential, but not a real warrior. Now, you've truly exceeded all expectations: an elite soldier, the best in my army. Cunning and brutal, without weakness, everything a Decepticon should be." The gun-former nodded again._

_Starscream raised his optics, meeting his leader's gaze. He wings perked up with pride. "You made me everything I am."_

**-o-o-o-**

"I am Megatron! I need help from no one," the tyrant scoffed. "Certainly not from treacherous Seekers who think too highly of themselves."

"Is it 'thinking too highly of yourself,' if you know you're right? Not that the mighty Megatron would ever admit I was correct about anything. How many times did I advise you on a course of action, only to be ignored, or mocked? Beaten, even, for pointing out flaws in your grand schemes?" Starscream replied.

"How many of those times were you wrong?"

"How many times were _you_?"

The two Decepticons glared at each other. Starscream noted with some alarm Megatron's fist clenching. After thousands of vorns serving beside the tyrant, he recognized the sure sign of his leader's temper flaring. And _that_ usually led to a very predictable, and explosive, ending.

"Shoot me, and you kill us both," the Seeker reminded him, thankful for the flammable gasses trapped with them.

The gun-former narrowed his optics, clenching and unclenching his hand as he considered his Second in Command. He snorted. "Have you found a way out of here yet?"

"Are you serious?" Starscream raised an optic ridge. Careful not to look up at the unstable ceiling overheard, he pointed upwards. "Do you see that? It's barely staying up. Do you want to be crushed? We need to wait for the Constructicons to dig us out."

Megatron snarled at him, but examined the ceiling and didn't argue. Still scrutinizing the surface above them, he moved away. Starscream watched the other walk off, kicking up plumes of dust. A muffled explosion echoed down through the rubble. Resulting shudders sent a rain of dust and loose fragments cascading down into the enclosed space. Starscream flinched, ducking. He shot a quick glance at Megatron. The tyrant, still busy examining above them, seemed not to notice his involuntary reaction.

Unable to stop himself, Starscream glanced up at the ceiling – _it was going to collapse, any time, they were going to be crushed, the ceiling would fall any moment now_ – and shuddered. Clenching his fists, he shook his head. No. He would not fall apart. Megatron would throw him in that 'box' again if he saw him like this. He had to distract himself.

And the perfect distraction currently walked away from him. With a grimace, the Seeker followed his leader farther into the bunker.

"What do you want?" Megatron turned as he approached – vorns of experience with his Second had taught him not to leave his back exposed. He waved his hand dismissively. "Do something useful, like find a way out."

"I've already looked. There's no way up without bringing the roof down on us," Starscream replied, not entirely truthfully. He had looked, just not at the ceiling.

The gun-former regarded him, crossing his arms. "Why stand _here_? There's plenty of room elsewhere."

Starscream glanced behind him, at the room. Yet another shiver ran through the ceiling. More debris trickled down. A large beam fell with a crash, throwing more dust into the air. Why, indeed. Turning back, he smirked. "If the ceiling collapses, I want my last sight to be you, being buried."

"In that eventuality, I will enjoy watching the spark crushed out of you," Megatron said. Glancing around the one last time, he snarled silently. "It appears we are stuck here until the others dig us out. Or the ceiling collapses."

"How fun," Starscream growled. "I can't think of anyplace I'd rather be."

The gun-former glared at him. "What happened to you? You used to worth something. Useful. When did you become such a pathetic waste of energon?"

"Perhaps I grew tired of following your plans, and taking the blame when they failed? Or when I realized that you were merely using my Seekers and me as cannon fodder to keep Autobot guns busy?" Starscream returned his glare. "My Seekers are not expendable."

"_Your_ Seekers? They are Decepticons! They are mine. As are you. You will all do as needed. And if I need you to die, you will."

"Oh, yes, that's your strategy to everything. Throw enough bodies at it, until you win or are annihilated." The Seeker sneered. Sighing, he shook his head. "Or perhaps I grew tired of being beaten for pointing out the truth. You never could listen to an opinion other than your own."

"As if I'd listen to anything you'd say. You're an egotistical fool. You're a liar and a schemer. A coward and a traitor."

Starscream smirked. "You made me everything I am."


End file.
